


A Candle to Guide Me

by dogmatix, norcumi



Series: Ghosts of 66 [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Deathfic, GFY, Gen, Post Order 66, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 11:34:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3172724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogmatix/pseuds/dogmatix, https://archiveofourown.org/users/norcumi/pseuds/norcumi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a clone and his General, existence after death turns out to be both more annoying and more fulfilling than they'd ever expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Candle to Guide Me

**Author's Note:**

> Brought to you by [Monster](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNMfaGvJn1I) by Imagine Dragons.

Cody ducked behind a pile of shipping boxes, struggling to change power packs in his blaster. His left arm was still fucking useless, but he was not about to let that stop him.

Timira City was falling to the Rebels. He was not going to surrender.

He was a clonetrooper.

Cody crouched down, peering around the corner, and he couldn’t stop a sneer. The last remnants of his battalion were falling like rusted droids, the Rebels catching them in crossfire that any shiny should have seen and accounted for. Typical of the bastards.

He snarled as one of the troopers dove for cover, misjudged the distance, and slammed headfirst into a fucking wall instead of hurtling around it. Force-damned _birth-born_ humans! “Get your fucking act together!” he howled into his com, watching the survivors jerk to attention—one of the useless cadets standing at literal attention long enough for a blaster bolt to show he used to have some brains, even if he’d never used them.

“Regroup on me! No, over—the shipping boxes, you kriffing son of a Hutt!” Cody took a moment to roll his eyes as a handful of the battalion _didn’t_ converge on his location. Those bastards provided halfway decent cover—or at least a distraction—as no more than a dozen men scampered behind the closest to a safe location they were going to find for kliks. 

In a few moments, the endless drills he’d tried to beat into their thick skulls finally proved useful, as he had a defensive line formed to shoot around and over the crates. 

Of fucking course, none of that mattered as moments later, the Rebels sent several grenades arcing over their cover. Before any of the Imperials could do a thing, the grenades exploded, tearing through the shipping crates. The blast sent Cody flying backward, his vision whiting out and pain searing through him for a few horrific breaths. 

He lay on the ground for long heartbeats, blinking slowly to try to get the spots out of his eyes. Everything seemed odd, murky. Noises seemed far away. Everything had a tint of blue to it, which was not normal at all. 

After those first incredibly painful breaths, he felt fine. The blue wasn’t going away, but he was willing to take it. He sat up, movements a little slow and cautious. These Rebels had halfway decent leadership; why the hell hadn’t they come around and make sure of their kil—?

“Shit,” he muttered, glaring down at the pile of shredded meat he was sitting in. He lifted up his left hand—his arm seemed perfectly fine now, what the hell?—and he watched as it passed through steaming carrion as if it, or his hand, wasn’t there.

_Shit_ , he sighed inside, standing up and trying to not stare around like some lost tourist. _THIS is the afterlife?_ He turned and froze in place when he finally saw another humanoid figure, lurking behind him in long, dark robes. 

There was a Jedi watching him. 

It was an older human, with long graying hair and a sad, serene expression. Cody was sure he’d never seen the man before. Upon seeing that Cody had spotted him, the Jedi gave him the little nod of greeting Jedi liked, approaching with hands stuck in sleeves but a lightsaber visible at his belt.

_Can you die when you’re already dead?_ He didn’t particularly want to find out. He glanced down as discreetly as he could, snarling in astonishment when he found that while he did not have a blaster, he was in his old clonetrooper armor. 

_Relics of the war don’t belong in the Empire_ , memory jeered at him, and Cody shook the recollection off with long practice. His Phase IIs were long gone, but maybe it was something about they were just as much a ghost as he seemed to be. 

“Commander,” the Jedi declared with another nod of greeting. Cody couldn’t stop an automatic bristle, glare on in full force. He’d managed to get a few promotions since the war. Who the fuck did this joker think he was? “It’s good to finally meet you.”

“We’re dead, aren’t we.” Since the Jedi seemed to be chatty, not the expected murderous, he figured he might as well get as much intel as he could.

He had no idea what he’d do with it, but it wasn’t like it could hurt. 

Cody got the little head tilt of a nod he was certain the whole damn Order must’ve taken classes to learn, back at the Temple. They had all done it, this bobble with eyes half closed, the movement right between gracious and sanctimonious as all fuck. He couldn’t stop emotion rippling down his spine, so he sneered at the Jedi. “Here to take me to the nastier parts of the afterlife?” he growled, automatically settling his hands at his hips where blasters used to be. He started a little when his fingers closed around the grips of the weapons that he _knew_ had not been there moments before. 

Death and the afterlife were seriously fucked up. 

“Of course not,” the Jedi said, almost serene still even with a hint of mild surprise coloring his tone. “I thought you knew Jedi aren’t into that sort of thing.” Cody recognized the dry, understated humor lurking in the back of the words, and something inside him twinged. He glared away, only looking back when he could see the faint blue glow to the man had moved closer. He took half a step back, snarling when the Jedi stopped with that damned look of _compassion_ on his face. 

The man sighed. “I didn’t think you ought to be alone when this happened. You’ve been undercover a long time, and that sort of dedication deserves far better.” 

“Shut up, Jedi.” Cody wasn’t sure how he managed to put a sneer into that growl, but long practice had him covering up hints of panic without missing a beat. Not even Lord Vader had paid attention to his fluctuating emotions, that one horrible time they’d been in the same room.

The Jedi just raised his brows a little, in mild not-really surprise. “I was there, you know. When the Order came.”

Cody froze. No. It could not be. There was no way—no matter _how_ long this damn Jedi had been dead— “...I get lots of orders.”

“Only one that mattered that much to you.”

He glared, hands automatically clenched tight around his blaster handles. “I’m a good soldier,” he growled, old anger and bitterness bubbling over in his voice. “I’ve been a loyal subject of the Empire since it began.”

It fucked with him to no end that the Jedi kept that same damn expression on his stupid kriffing face. He wasn’t sure if he wished it were something other than that patient, compassionate _understanding_ , or if it was easier to deal with since the man seemed to only have that one look.

“Which betrayal hurt you more,” the Jedi mused quietly, “ordering your men to fire on your General, or the fact that you ordered the misaligned cannon to fire?” Cody froze, breath locked in his lungs and the world spinning even as he kept his face blank. “It’s rather difficult to spend the rest of your life making up for both of those.”

_No,_ his mind insisted with fake calm. _That’s not possible_. It had been years. It had been fucking _years_ and no one had ever noticed the fourteen memos he’d had to write to the quartermaster. For _weeks_ he’d bitched to the man about how one of the cannons the 212 depended on couldn’t aim for shit. The sights would settle right, the gun fired perfectly fine, but internal gyros or some such shit were fucked to hell and back. The damn thing never shot the same place twice. The only thing it _wouldn’t_ hit was where the crosshairs were. He had always kept an eye on that monstrosity, because while it had worked well enough against crowds or massed attacks—and the clankers had loved their dressed lines and mass charges—he never wanted to depend on that fucker for specific targets. 

Except the once. 

“I haven’t been undercover,” he finally managed to say.

Again the Jedi tilted his head in acknowledgement. “What would you call it, then?” 

He couldn’t get any words out of his throat. He wanted to, he had half a dozen justifications and defenses he’d had lined up for years, but he was fucking _dead_ , it didn’t _matter_ anymore, and the bastard had made too damn good a point. In the end he looked away. “Hiding.” 

“You don’t have to, anymore.”

“Saw it all anyways, hey?” There was enough bitterness in his voice to drown a Hutt.

“No.” He glanced over at the Jedi, who finally looked different—a little sheepish, a little rueful, of all things. “My attention has been...rather divided. But I saw enough. I saw you make sure Obi-Wan lived, as best you could. You made sure there were several space fighters left, for when he escaped. I’ve seen you delay, and follow the book to the most exactly, over the top letter when that has let some Jedi live a little while longer—”

“Until Vader gets them.”

The Jedi’s expression finally changed, going grave with a touch of anger. “Vader was hardly your responsibility.” 

“He used to be.” Cody squared his shoulders and gave the Jedi a _look_. It didn’t matter how long his life had been hell, or how he forced himself to be loyal to a government that he didn’t believe in, simply because it was expected and demanded of him, and he had only managed to disobey it the once, before it was a true entity he _had_ to follow. He was a clonetrooper, and he had always been keenly aware of what that meant. “Just because he’s not Skywalker anymore, just because Rex wasn’t there to share the load, doesn’t mean I was ever relieved of that duty.”

“Obi-Wan did not ask you to take that upon yourself,” the Jedi said, vaguely reproving. 

Cody snorted. “No General would. They’re all—they _were_ all stupid that way.” For a moment, he had to fight to keep emotion from his face; the perpetual, _inappropriate_ grief he had never been allowed to show after he heard Order 66 issued. “He needed Skywalker to keep going. That made Anakin—Vader—my responsibility.” 

Grief flooded across the Jedi’s expression, and the man bowed his head for a moment. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, but before the man could self-flagellate too much, Cody sighed.

He might have been dead, but he’d never had the time or patience for that kind of shit. 

“You’re Jinn, aren’t you.” The Jedi’s head snapped up, but it was amused curiosity on the man’s face, not shock. Cody wasn’t sure what he thought of that. On the one hand, it was good. It meant Jinn wasn’t so full of himself and his mystic Force bullshit that he’d go around thinking Jedi were above normal beings who could just apply _logic_ to a situation. 

On the other hand, it _hurt_ , burning through him with unexpected intensity. Cody hadn’t let himself miss his General this much in years. 

“You act like him,” Cody managed to say without his voice getting too thick. “Your sense of humor sucks just like his does.” From the small smile Jinn had, the Jedi could tell he didn’t mean the insult. “You like the cryptic wise man, sneaky wiseass approach too much not to have shown each other some tricks.”

Jinn’s smile widened to something more natural, warmer. Gentle. “Thank you.” He stepped forward, settling a hand on Cody’s shoulder. “Perhaps you would like to exchange a few embarrassing stories?” 

* * *

Obi-Wan breathed out, feeling the Force thrum through his being. So this was death. It was...a relief, really. He opened his eyes at Luke’s howl of protest, both the audible scream and a reverberation through the Force.

Damn. There was no way Vader would miss that. Obi-Wan spun, wincing as he saw the children. Luke was taking a stand, blasting away at the stormtroopers, while the others were at least diving for the Falcon. Behind Obi-Wan, Vader was venting in some poor temper, stomping through the old robes that were all that were left, but that couldn’t last long.

Not entirely certain what he was doing, or how, Obi-Wan cupped his hands and willed the Force to carry his voice to his last student. “Run, Luke! Run!” He staggered, feeling energy rush from his being.

Being dead was a new and slightly annoying experience. He had no idea how one did anything like this. As the Falcon pulled away from danger, Obi-Wan straightened, breathing deep—did he even _need_ to breathe anymore? He wasn’t too keen to find out one way or another, really. He looked around, trying to decide how he was supposed to follow the children. Perhaps a ghost of an old space fighter? He snorted at the fanciful notion, then he froze.

Standing behind him, with that familiar wry smile, was Qui-Gon Jinn. 

Apparently the dead did need to breathe. He sucked air—if that was what it was—into aching lungs, then he stepped forward. He moved as if in a dream, particularly given how as he walked to his old mentor, Obi-Wan changed. He began as Old Ben the mad hermit from Tatooine. Each step forward seemed as if back in time, his body strengthening as youth gradually returned. By the time he reached Qui-Gon, he was once again General Kenobi, the Negotiator. 

He hugged Qui-Gon, _hard_ , reveling in the warmth and security that certainly seemed real—alive. 

Then Obi-Wan pulled back and punched the man. Qui-Gon folded over the blow, but damned if he wasn’t _laughing_ , that uproarious, joyful sound wheezing though somehow. 

“You absolute _bastard_!” Obi-Wan was trying to not laugh—Qui-Gon did _not_ need the encouragement—not cry—though oh, he wanted to, for how long had he desperately wanted this?—and not hug the breath out of his master all over again. “You forgot to damn well _duck_.” He took another swing at Qui-Gon, neither caring that it was bound to miss. “Did you forget how to block as well?”

“I could ask you the same, Padawan.” Qui-Gon stood, still smiling at him. He folded Obi-Wan into another hug, his chuckle rumbling through the smaller man. “If Luke learned that as well, we best consider our whole damn line of Jedi curiously incompetent and then retire to farming.”

“What the hell do ghosts farm?” Obi-Wan asked into Qui’s tunics. He thumped his old master on the arm, then pulled away, glaring back at the empty docking bay in mock pique. It let him hide the emotion, the tears trying to run down his face. “And look, now I’ve lost them. I have to go chasing after that damned speedy junkheap, and I’ve not the least idea how to do anything with this life after death mess.”

Qui-Gon chuckled, thankfully not moving from his place behind Obi-Wan. The younger Jedi still felt unstable, rocked by gods know how many emotions, and he wasn’t certain how much more upset he could take before completely breaking down. 

It wasn’t as if he weren’t due for it, sooner rather than later. 

“Perhaps it might be easier if I took up the watch for a bit, and gave you some time to adjust?” Qui-Gon asked, voice wry but gentle.

“That...might not be the worst idea in the world,” Obi-Wan admitted, pinching the bridge of his nose and taking the opportunity to discreetly clear his eyes. “I don’t think my temper has been tried quite so thoroughly in _years_.” Temper, emotions, close enough. It really did all just depend on one’s perspective. Obi-Wan turned to face Qui-Gon, and it took everything he had left to not wince, to not let his emotions boil free as his eyes informed him that this was no dream. This was not a hallucination of Mortis, nor some desperate hope that his memories had not blurred with time. The Force told him quite clearly that this was indeed his dead master, and it was almost too much for Obi-Wan.

He settled for giving Qui-Gon a slightly scolding look. “However, I would rather not be gaining some stability only to have you tromp back in all over it.” Did the dead have coms? Surely there must be some way to communicate without just using the Force willy-nilly every which way. 

Qui-Gon gave him a smile that verged upon a smirk. He remembered that look far too well, and Obi-Wan was already pulling himself up to protest whatever ridiculous madness his master was about to inflict now. 

Gods, how he had missed this. 

“A compromise, then?” Qui-Gon asked too dryly. “A friend of mine can help you. He’s learned a great deal, and can give you some quick lessons should you want them.”

Obi-Wan’s mouth was already open to shoot down the idea—gods knew what Qui-Gon had following him home now that he was dead and presumably didn’t have to worry about things like teeth and tentacles. Yet Qui-Gon was already gesturing to the side, as if summoning forth the figure materializing there. 

Obi-Wan found the breath knocked out of him again. He forced himself to breathe as the man in scuffed clone armor solidified, the blue patina not lessening Cody’s glare at Qui-Gon one whit. “Thank you very much for giving him a chance to choose,” the clone growled. “You need to learn some more fucking manners about greeting the recent dead. Just because you know all the special tricks doesn’t mean you need to show them off all at once.” Cody looked over at Obi-Wan, and he could see so many apologies in the man’s gaze. “General.” The nod was almost hesitant, pained, but oh so familiar. “I...was going to wait.” 

This time it was not dream-like. He’d had many long years to consider his past. He had never thought he would have this kind of an opportunity. Obi-Wan pulled Cody into a hug, and he was both surprised and relieved to find it returned. “This will do fine,” Obi-Wan finally managed to say, hoping the tears didn’t seem absurd, hoping that Qui-Gon understood. By the time he and Cody were willing to let go, Qui-Gon had indeed taken the correct cue and disappeared to give them some space. 

Obi-Wan wiped his face clear, he and his commander pretending the other wasn’t doing the same. The clone looked much as he had in the war, but he was now comfortable with himself in a way Obi-Wan had never seen. He was still military sharp, but without that strung-tight attitude, leaving him relaxed with his environment as Obi-Wan remembered Jango to be. Cody had never managed to look at ease like that. 

The Jedi smiled and shook his head. “You missed,” he finally said, too many words and too many memories bubbling over until he simply took the most straightforward route. At the very least, the passage of years had taken some of the sting out of so much horror. “I’m amazed no one realized how sloppy that was.” Hells, he barely had, not until he’d found abandoned Separatist star fighters, which the troops had always claimed as salvage. 

Only Cody had the authority here to leave them, just as only Cody would have been able to command the men to fire at Obi-Wan. 

His commander’s smile was almost shy. “No, Sir. It hit exactly what I wanted.” 

Obi-Wan stared for a moment, the Force joyous and peaceful around him for the first time in years. He had never expected death would give him any reason to smile again, let alone reason to laugh.

It was very, very good to find himself proven wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> This was strongly influenced by a certain [Tumblr post](http://norcumi.tumblr.com/post/107433164504/ofcarmilla-you-were-the-chosen-one-you-were), and I think it's pretty clear that [this comic](http://norcumi.tumblr.com/post/92290612474/doodlex1-after-his-own-death-obi-wan-saw-his) also played a strong part in visualization and plot.
> 
> Also, thanks to Amemait for finding all sorts of fun typos.


End file.
